Letter: New Crossing Would Help Deliver Modal Shift

Published on: 18 Sep, 2018
Updated on: 18 Sep, 2018

From John Rigg

Guildford Vision Group (GVG) director

The recent presentation to the council by the modal shift expert Dr Steve Melia happily confirmed everything that GVG, a group of local residents, has been advocating for years to an unreceptive political leadership. If we want to reduce the impact of car usage on our town and its environs there has to be:

•    pedestrianisation
•    diversion of traffic away from the town centre
•    intensification of housing in the town centre to meet housing need
•    road closures

GVG’s February 2017 masterplan for the town centre, including a new railway crossing, delivers on all the above.

The route proposed by GVG.

GVG also agrees with Dr Melia’s contention that modal shift will not work in the green belt settlements proposed by the council in the draft Local Plan. His evidence shows that car usage in such settlements is sixteen times greater than that created by denser, town centre housing. Out-of-town housing simply exports congestion to the town centre.

If we are to reduce car usage and pollution in the town centre there has to be radical change, including big investment in public transport. Finally, he says you need strong leadership and a “wow” factor to win people over to new ways of making their journeys into and across town.

We in GVG support and advocate modal shift. However, we are measured in our views. We do not think it is a panacea or even near to being a solution for Guildford, as advocated by the political leaders at the council. But it might be an ingredient to making our town centre work better, especially through wider pedestrianisation.

GVG certainly supports more housing in the town centre. GVG’s masterplan identifies space for 3,500 more homes in the town centre to relieve the green belt. By contrast, the draft local plan calls for just 900 homes preferring to develop green field to brownfield sites.

The GVG masterplan has been studiously ignored and undermined by Guildford Borough Council from the outset. Yet the GVG plan excitingly delivers for our community. It offers a much wider pedestrianised town centre, a reinvigorated riverside and new footpaths and cycleways linking across town. Along with the new homes come a school, a community centre and related facilities, a doctor’s surgery and new public squares plus an open-air covered market. It delivers the “wow” factor.

The GVG masterplan is accessible to all on our website. It’s visible, online and capable of inspection. It’s been open to public consultation and scrutiny and was well received.

The key to GVG’s masterplan is a new crossing of the river and railway, linking York Road roundabout with the Guildford Park Road area. This new corridor, with its segregated cycleway, opens the door to rerouting through traffic away from the centre, in line with Dr Melia’s philosophy. It disposes of the gyratory and frees up the riverside and Guildford Wharf as public space to help make a top quality town centre.

Current wisdom, supported by Dr Melia, denounces new roads. New roads suck in new traffic. GVG’s corridor is thus conveniently dismissed by the council and other objectors as an unacceptable “new” road.

Our proposed crossing adds barely 40 metres to the quantum of tarmac dedicated to cars and if re-routeing is “good” then we need the new crossing to enable that to happen.

All the examples of towns where modal shift has worked have flat or near flat topography, offering scope to divert away from the centre on existing roads. Guildford, by contrast, is a tight gap town, then cut in half by the railway with only a single two-lane bridge. This crossing directs all traffic into the town centre onto a gyratory which, frankly, has us all by the throat.

With only one east-west crossing (the Farnham Road Bridge, built in 1845 before the motor car arrived!), Guildford is at risk. Everyone needs Guildford transportation to be resilient. The economy needs Guildford to work. The GVG crossing coincidentally and happily also delivers that extra resilience.

Modal shift is a good thing but be careful of anyone espousing modal shift as a dogma, especially if they say “Don’t be silly, we don’t build roads and bridges anymore”.

Dogma can be bad. Dogma said, “fill in the canals, we have trains now. We don’t need canals’. Then, later, Dr Beeching said ‘Rail is finished, cars are the future. Close all the stations and branch lines’. Now we say ‘Don’t build roads anymore, we will deliver your fridge freezer by cycle or drone’. Yet today new rail lines are under active discussion and canals are being reopened for public enjoyment and environmental benefit.

What’s so wrong with a new road that delivers real and unique benefits to the town centre and our residents.

Responses to Letter: New Crossing Would Help Deliver Modal Shift

Bibhas Neogi Reply

September 18, 2018 at 1:37 pm

No doubt GVG’s proposal has many merits but would it be possible to achieve?

It requires the building of three new bridges, a flyover and a link road. Constructing the two bridges over the tracks would pose many difficulties, particularly in locating and constructing supports in between the tracks and the fact that trains run almost 21 hours a day. I have raised these issues before but received no reply from the Vision Group.

It would also require a lot of demolition of properties to make way for the route and it requires active co-operation of Network Rail.

GVG was set up to promote ideas from the interested public but since it started promoting its own ideas, it no longer entertains any possible alternative.

I have mentioned my ideas of how to make the town centre pedestrian and cyclist friendly in an alternative scheme.

Millbrook and Onslow Street stretch of the road could be put in an underground route between the Quarry Street junction and York Road roundabout while a new bridge and a flyover take the east-west traffic out of the gyratory. GVG uses a similar crossing but it takes the entire traffic not just the east-west traffic.

I have illustrated my ideas many times before here in The Dragon News. The readers might particularly be interested in this letter and comments therein: https://guildford-dragon.com/2016/08/20/letter-still-think-tunnel-a281-traffic-best-option/
Ben Paton Reply

September 18, 2018 at 3:11 pm

“The GVG masterplan has been studiously ignored and undermined by Guildford Borough Council from the outset.”

GVG [Guidford Vision Group] is in the same position as GRA [Guidford residents association], WAG [Wisley Action Group], Save the Hog’s Back and many others. Individually and collectively these groups have more paid up members than the Guildford Conservative party. You’d think that would enfranchise them. You’d think the common sense advocated, after all a new bridge over the railway and river is a no-brainer, would get them a seat at the table.

Perhaps GVG should adopt a strategy with a history of proven success. It should incorporate in the Cayman Islands, keep its membership a close secret, employ a politician to head it up, and offer titbits for Ash and Tongham such as pet Local Plan policy to create new green belt there.
Martin Elliott Reply

September 18, 2018 at 9:18 pm

It’s not surprising if people have difficulty with the GVG. Despite their limited roadshow and video, it took another 14 months before they made an actual document of what their plan really was with any level of detail. Apparently, the one-page description and a video were adequate and they couldn’t release a full plan as it was still being developed.

They claimed this had been supplied to GBC. However, that document was or is a presentation of one set of proposals for developments. There is no underlying sets of data, reasons for changes, alternative options compared and prioritised.

All these, although contested in consultation, are provided by GBC.

Sorry, but with such delays, and the product presented, GVG has lost any credibility with me.
John Rigg Reply

September 19, 2018 at 8:37 am

In answer to Bibhas Neogi, we do believe our plan is achievable. We have looked at tunnelling but believe it is too expensive and disruptive in this instance. The Farnham Road bridge is not fit for purpose and the Town Bridge really should be raised (as in our scheme) to counter its damming impact when the Wey floods. But it’s not just about the engineering, important though that is.

It’s about creating attractive space, better public realm and a mix of development that is economically viable and sustainable. We have to make Guildford an even more desirable destination.

We have had discussions with Network Rail; indeed we introduced senior council figures to our high-level contacts we met with. Network Rail clearly have considerable experience in bridging operational railways/roads and with appropriate design, a solution can be found for Guildford. They confirmed this in our discussions.

95% or more of the area involved in our plan is owned by three entities, two of which are public bodies and the other a commercial investor. This is a significant factor in bringing any large scheme together. Many of the buildings on our route are approaching the end of their economic lives when they are likely to be demolished and redeveloped anyway.

Our plan has been to gradually assemble the route and deliver in stages, economically and with the minimum disruption.

There will be some housing affected but very few demolished by our plan. That’s only to be expected for such an important, transformational scheme which can deliver 3,500 homes in a tight town centre. The council’s Waitrose development impacted existing housing, for example, albeit on a site earmarked for more housing.

We have subjected our plans and thinking to a number of public meetings and engagement over the past six years. Our initial thinking was very much guided by public input, captured in our 2013 document “Guildford on the Way”. How many others have done that?

Inevitably other people will have a different approach. That’s great. But, after six or more years of discussion, research and debate, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for GVG to promoting one particular approach.

GVG and Bibhas Neogi are on the same side. We both want a better Guildford. What reaction has Bibhas had from the council about his various schemes and solutions? We’re very happy to meet with him again.
- Bibhas Neogi Reply
  
  September 19, 2018 at 11:34 am
  
  Thanks to John Rigg for replying to queries I had raised before on GVG’s proposals. It is reassuring to learn that GVG has consulted Network Rail (NR) and that it has confirmed a solution can be found for Guildford.
  
  I hope NR would find solutions but at what cost? It would not fund any of these and, in theory, could come up with solutions that are technically sound but prohibitively expensive. We will have to wait and see.
  
  Tunnelling is a misnomer for the type of solution I have proposed to put the A281 stretch underground. The method is top-down construction to create a tunnel-like structure. The cost of such a construction is comparable to building bridges rather than tunnels.
  
  Any construction to modify or widen the road network on a scale that is required in Guildford invariably has to cope with traffic management. I have considered how this could be done in promoting my ideas.
  
  It would probably be too detailed and technical for the readers here, so I shall simply say that work would keep at least one lane of northbound open while the southbound is diverted through various other routes in stages.
  
  The new east-west route would definitely have to be constructed and used for southbound diversion at some stage. I proposed this two-lane route with cycle lanes at the northern end of Solum’s site and the flyover terminating at Mary Road rather than meeting the busy York Road roundabout
  
  The southbound route would use Friary Bridge, a reopened Town Bridge, widened Friary Street and then Quarry Street at various stages together with a rolling traffic management on the A281.
  
  GVG’s proposals for new housing, squares, car parks etc, are all compatible with my proposal for dealing with the traffic. It is, of course, for the councils to consider the wider implications and the extent of regeneration of Guildford in their town planning but traffic issues have to be addressed.
  
  In my view, relying on Modal Shift to reduce traffic appreciably would be unrealistic. It is not clear but GVG’s illustrations give the impression that they are relying on reduced traffic for their scheme to work.
John Rigg Reply

September 19, 2018 at 9:24 am

In reply to Martin Elliot, we are a group of concerned, mostly retired residents who have a considerable amount of relevant expertise.

We do not have the resources to produce the level of detail he seems to require to reach a judgement on the merits of our scheme versus proposals from the council. In any event, I don’t believe the council has a public scheme of the scale envisaged by ours, save for the unadopted 2017 Town Centre Regeneration Strategy (informed by their unadopted Allies & Morrison study). Interestingly, the council is reviewing the strategy just one year later.

What we have achieved so far over the past six years has been by dint of our own efforts, the help of a number of professionals and old contacts who have either contributed pro bono or for minimal fees. These have been funded from our own resources and donations by supportive residents.

If Martin Elliot wants the level of detail he feels he needs then if he can find £2-5 million for us, we’d be away and running. Perhaps he could persuade the council to divert the £3.7million it is spending on the new Walnut Tree bridge. That would be a much better use of ratepayers’ money.

Our plans are a vision, albeit incorporating sensible and economic commercial realism. They are the start of any journey for a scheme of the size we propose. At our public launch last year, where around 500 people attended, over 95% were supportive of our scheme and the new crossing involved. You can see them here http://www.guildfordvisiongroup.com/downloads/2018GVG-master-plan.pdf

Martin has resisted our invitation to meet face-to-face. I offer him a meeting once again when I hope we might reach a better understanding of each other’s approach and goals.
Martin Elliott Reply

September 19, 2018 at 1:09 pm

As I’ve pointed out to John Rigg, I am also a retired Professional Engineer with many decades of wide experience including Local Planning with both regulators and authorities.

As I said at the time, I do not attend meetings without information and preparation. That is not resistance, it is a justifiable, professional attitude. If GVG announces a plan and makes preparations, and issues it to GBC, why could I not see it in advance as well?

Sadly, as John Rigg admits, what is presented in the link, issued 14 months after it was launched is no more than a set of ‘brainstormed’ ideas with little more than qualitative thoughts behind them. No quantification, no justification. A stage 1 concept.

Now I’ve seen it, there is frankly nothing of substance to discuss. That is why I ended the conversation. Apart from presenting it again as something it isn’t, nothing has changed. So thank you again for the offer, but unless you have something more or new, there is no point in meeting.

Yes, it takes resource to develop that single vision further. If GVG can’t access that resource, then they should stop ‘selling’ their ideas and ‘vision’ as a plan comparable to the GBC Local Plans.
Bibhas Neogi Reply

October 28, 2018 at 9:26 am

In order to switch off the gyratory and make the town centre pedestrian friendly, East-West traffic has to be taken out and put on a new crossing over the railway.

North-South A281 traffic has to go either as GVG proposes or put on a viaduct or put underground. The idea of the A281 on a viaduct is totally unacceptable as this would ruin the character of Guildford.

It could be put in a tunnel-like structure, not a tunnel, using what is known as top-down construction and remain largely invisible. A pedestrian-friendly town centre would thus be achieved over the lengths of Millbrook and Onslow Street.

The A3100 traffic could be taken through, a preferably widened Walnut Tree Close (WTC), up to Station View junction and then one-way up to a new crossing of the river. The route could then follow one-way Leas Road to join Woodbridge Road.

The problem is Solum’s development of the railway station. It would block this route the Guildford Vision Group is proposing, something I proposed way back in 2009.

The alternative route could cross the tracks further North and go through what is now Jewson’s Yard and cross WTC, the river and sweep south to join Leas Road through Aviva’s Depot. This site is apparently being developed as a student accommodation. However, should GBC wish to proceed with such a route, CPOs will be required for a few houses in WTC also to make way.

It is worth considering as a new East-West route is essential for a pedestrian-friendly town centre.